Chapter 2
Night wrapped around us quickly, the sun descending behind the lower mountains.
Myers and I made our way over to the central bonfire that was taking place between two of the major lines of designated lots.
There wasn't as many people as I'd first suspected when Darlene and Gerald had invited us, satiating both mine and my sister's apprehensions.
There were five people in their folding chairs surrounding the already roaring fire including our new neighbors. With our own folding chairs slung over our respective shoulders, we approached with steeled reservations and tempered grins.
“Y’all, these are the new neighbors that parked right next to us I was telling you about!
” Darlene said as soon as we breached the circle, finding enough room to place our folding chairs.
We busied ourselves with opening our chairs and managed to sit down before we were being introduced.
There was a seat right next to me on the right that was empty, but I could see a human rummaging through a cooler from across the fire.
Darlene gestured to her left. “You both already met Gerald.” She beamed and her husband was quick to mirror his wife's actions. Then her hand made a flourish through the air as she indicated to her right.
The man sitting to Darlene's right was an Orb, one of the creatures that had blended with society after their existence was unveiled to the world.
He had ocean blue and brown skin, a landscape of beautiful vitiligo.
His hair was a fun shade of teal that matched his eyes perfectly.
The splotches of blue around his neck looked more intentional.
I wasn't sure what species of Orb he was, but he was fairly handsome regardless.
“This is Byll.” It sounded eerily like the human name, surprising me.
Usually I'd heard that Orbs had more unique names than humans.
Then again, some human names were beautifully unique as well.
It wasn't until this moment I realized that I'd seen plenty of Orbs in my life but I hadn't really been around them long enough to learn about them.
“Hi there,” Byll smiled, holding a southern accent, much like Darlene and Gerald's. “Nice to have you at the park.”
We nodded but didn't interject with our names as Darlene gestured to the next person. “And this is Colette.”
Colette was human, a gorgeous woman with dark skin and darker hair.
She gave us a confident smile and a nod, taking a sip of the beer she was nursing.
The man rummaging around the cooler started to make his way over to the empty chair to my right, three beers twisted around his fingers as he offered us the beverages.
As we took them, I caught Darlene's grin out of the corner of my eye.
“And that tall drink of water is Lincoln.”
Lincoln did a little half-bow in her direction. “You flatter me, Darlene. Keep it coming.”
Everyone laughed at his reaction, making both Myers and I smile.
She was right about one thing, Lincoln was attractive as fuck.
Being blissfully bisexual, I was able to truly take in his fair skin and blond hair.
His blue eyes didn't hurt either, catching the reflection of the bonfire beautifully.
His body looked well crafted too, not that I cared much about that sort of thing.
Between Lincoln and Colette, I was spoiled for choice on who would be awarded the Krueger Lin award for most captivating.
“Thanks for the beer." I said, Myers mimicking my thanks as Lincoln took his seat next to me. The beer itself was a run of the mill IPA and I wasn’t complaining. Free beer was free beer. “I’m Krueger, and this is my sister, Myers.”
“Wait, like Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers?" Collette questioned with a bit of a laugh, revealing her British accent, further adding to her already established mystique. “That can't be your real names.”
“Oh, they are.” Myers laughed with a nod. We’d been getting this our entire lives, so at any given moment we had appropriate explanations at the ready. “Our parents are really big horror fans, so they named us after two of the greatest horror villains of all time.”
“Their idea of a comfort movie involves murder and mayhem,” I tacked on, smirking wildly. “They're a bit eccentric, as you can imagine.”
Discussion amongst the group veered away from Myers and I, awarding us with a plethora of information regarding our current company as well as some insight about the others occupying the RV park.
Byll wasn't the only Orb staying in the park, but he was by far the most sociable. There was apparently a family of stellymn that kept to themselves and rarely left their RV who were a couple spots down from Byll. And there was apparently a few more scattered Orbs throughout the park, but like the stellymn, they didn’t make it a habit to be out and about.
As for Byll himself, he’d been traveling for months up and down the east coast before settling in Phoebe about a month ago.
Colette was here with her parents, but they weren't much for socializing. They'd been at the park for almost two months, enjoying being away from society after moving out of Georgia while they sorted out where they wanted to permanently move to on the east coast.
Darlene and Gerald came to Phoebe to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary by taking a sabbatical from real life, spanning multiple months.
More of a celebration year, they’d said.
They'd been here the longest, finishing out the rest of October in North Carolina after arriving in July before they would inevitably return back to Alabama.
Lincoln had been at the park for the shortest amount of time. He was coming up on three weeks at the park after some drama went down with his family and he’d finally decided that he needed to get away from Massachusetts.
It was nice learning about everyone's stories, barely finishing my second beer when Lincoln finished telling us his vague tale and gave us all of his attention.
“So, what brings you two to Phoebe?”
Everyone's eyes shifted to our direction, our time to regale them with our history finally upon us. I was struggling with how exactly to explain without being overtly personal, but luckily for me, Myers beat me to the punch.
“I just graduated college, and I wanted to take some time off to travel across the country.”
“And I decided to quit my dead-end job to join her to finally pursue my passion.” I interjected so she wouldn't have to bear my reasons on her shoulders.
“What's your passion?” Lincoln asked, a tilt to his eyebrows that told me he was interested for a different reason other than learning about my past.
It was cute to see someone, from where I was sitting, inclining that they might be interested in me.
After my breakup with Jenna, I hadn't pursued anyone in a long time.
I'd hooked up here and there, which was what my current state of mind called for, but Lincoln was a good looking guy.
If he was potentially throwing me a bone, I'd happily receive it.
“Writing.” I said simply, avoiding anyone's gaze for fear of seeing judgment reflected back in them. I was particularly sensitive when it came to justifying what I wanted to do with my life. “I’ve been slowly but surely working on my first novel since we've been on the road.”
“That's amazing.” Colette beamed, raising her beer in the air before her. “Cheers to that, babes.”
“Thanks.” I could feel my cheeks heating, thankful that the bonfire flickering its orange-red light could swallow the embarrassed hue that adorned my face.
“He's really good, but he doesn't believe me.”
“You're my sister,” I told Myers. “You have to believe in me for the well being of our sibling relationship.”
“The hell I do. Plenty of siblings don't get along. I just happen to consider you my best friend and prefer to tell you the truth.”
All of them cooed with a wave of awe at her words, the heat rushing back to my cheeks as we gained a shift in attention.
I smiled through it though. Honestly, Myers was my best friend.
The only other friends I had besides my sister were the friends I had made online through the Goodreads community I’d become a part of and the co-workers I used to have at the insurance company.
I hadn’t spoken to either group since we’d left Louisiana a few months ago, so I was due for some type of check in.
We’d hit several states since then and I’d been enjoying the peace and quiet.
Thankfully, the spotlight of conversation left us as Lincoln got up to help Darlene and Gerald prepare hot dogs and burgers on the bonfire.
Darlene had whipped out a flat griddle from absolutely nowhere and the three of them worked together to make it sit on top of the logs of the fire without fear of falling into it.
We spent the subsequent time getting to know more about the town of Phoebe and what things there were to do.
Colette and Lincoln were the closest to our ages, so they told us about things we might have similar interests in, like the local coffee shop, appropriately named Deja Brew, or the mini golf place that was right next to strip mall.
Darlene and Gerald were obviously of the older generation, and with Byll being an Orb, there was really no way to know his age short of asking him, but he seemed to suggest similar things to the couple.
They’d told us about the bingo hall on the other side of town from the strip mall, as if the town of Phoebe itself wanted to isolate the typical older pastimes from the newer ones.
We’d also learned that there was a pretty popular antique shop that sold furniture, knick knacks, and clothing items that had been previously discarded by owners who deemed their use finished.
Byll was really excited when telling us all about it, making me smile at the passion in his voice.
We’d just finished garnishing our food with the appropriate condiments and the convenient small bags of chips that the group had to offer.
I had no clue who had even prepared or brought what, but they were all adamant about us getting whatever we wanted.
I had grabbed another beer from the cooler Lincoln had been prying them from earlier before returning to my seat as Byll finished regaling us with why the antique shop was such a great place to spend money.
We were all sat back down around the fire, balancing our plates of food in our laps and eating as the conversation started back up again.
“Phoebe’s a cute little town, for sure.” Colette nodded after finishing a bite of her burger. “But if the rumors are true, nothing compares to the annual Hell-O-Ween festival.”
“You kids and halloween.” Gerald shook his head, but a grin lingered on his upturned lips.
“The town had just started setting up for it when we arrived, and that was back in July!” Darlene explained. “When we first drove in, we drove by town hall and they were already storing huge orange banners and massive jack-o-lantern decorations before the damn leaves had even turned!”
Lincoln chuckled at that, crumpling up his small bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and shoving it in the empty cup holder of his folding chair.
“Apparently, Phoebe is a big Halloween destination on the east coast.” He gestured to my sister and I.
“And clearly their marketing worked if these two came all the way to North Carolina just to experience it.”
“Damn right.” Myers chuckled. “Krueger and I wanted to end our trip across the country by going all out for our favorite holiday.”
“So have you traveled to each state so far?” Darlene inquired.
“Sure have.” I said after finishing my mustard slathered hot dog. “We’re originally from Virginia, so we went upwards from there and then went west after finishing the top of the east coast.”
“And then we wove our way through the midwest before heading to Florida and traveling our way back up the east coast to end up back in Virginia.” Myers added.
“North Carolina is our final state since we left right after the new year. It’s been a fun ten months, but it’s nice to be at the end.
And you guys talking about how spooky-centric Phoebe is, I’m excited we ended the journey here. ”
“Well, you picked the perfect place from what we’ve heard since arriving.” Byll guffawed. “There’s no better place to get your scare on than here.”
As the group finished eating their food, I was grateful to have fallen into the lap of this little town.
The fact that they were hyping up the event that Myers and I had planned around when deciding to come to North Carolina did nothing but build upon my expectations that this was going to be one hell of a way to end our trip around the country before the holidays officially kicked off.
Just a little over two weeks before Hell-O-Ween was upon us and I was getting antsy to have it here. But with company as good as the people surrounding us at the moment, waiting wasn’t the worst thing in the world.